Britain has lived in a “fool’s paradise” for too long and must reduce public spending to help to fund the government’s £45 billion worth of tax cuts, a senior cabinet minister has warned.
Simon Clarke, the levelling-up secretary and a key ally of Liz Truss, criticised the “very large welfare state” and said Whitehall departments would have to “trim the fat”.
Truss and her government are attempting to reassure the markets and their own MPs after the pound fell to a record low this week and the Bank of England was forced to make a £65 billion intervention in the bond market. Labour has taken a 33-point lead over the Tories in the polls, alarming many Conservative MPs.
Truss and her core team believe that the markets have overreacted and will recover once they have seen the full extent of her plans. They include significant cuts in public spending to shore up government finances.
The prime minister refused yesterday to rule out raising benefits at below the rate of inflation as part of government cost-saving measures, saying ministers would make an announcement in “due course”.
In an interview with The Times, Clarke, a member of the “quad” of most senior ministers, said Truss had no choice but to take radical action to limit public spending.
He said: “My big concern in politics is that western Europe is just living in a fool’s paradise whereby we can be ever less productive relative to our peers, and yet still enjoy a very large welfare state and persist in thinking that the two are somehow compatible over the medium to long term.
“They’re not. We need to address that precisely because in the end, if we want those strong public services then we are going to have to pay for them.”
Several Tory MPs, including a serving cabinet minister, told The Times that she would be forced to “back down” because the government had lost so much support over its budget. Tory MPs are in talks with Labour about how to overturn the budget, amid warnings that the Conservatives will lose the next election.
The prime minister rejected pressure yesterday to bring forward an independent assessment by the Office for Budget Responsibility of the impact of her tax cuts on public finances.
Clarke said that public spending must “align” with the government’s new tax plans. “I think it is important that we look at a state which is extremely large, and look at how we can make sure that it is in full alignment with a lower tax economy,” he said. “I do think it’s very hard to cut taxes if you don’t have the commensurate profile of spending and the supply side reform. If we’re adopting this plan, which I think is exciting and fundamentally addresses the competitiveness issue, the rest of the piece needs to move in tandem.
“We are privileged to deal with very large budgets. My experience . . . is that there is always something you can do to trim the fat.”
Tory MPs predicted that Truss would not have the support to push cuts to benefits through the Commons. One said: “We cannot be voting to cap benefits when we’re giving tax cuts to the highest earners.
Other MPs said they were concerned that higher borrowing costs — in part triggered by the government’s tax- cutting budget — could choke off the investment that Truss had put at the centre of her plans. “I know at least one business that has put their expansion plans on hold because they don’t know if they’ll be able to service the debt,” a former cabinet minister said.
*Steven Swinford, Political Editor | Oliver Wright, Policy Editor*
So we’re literally cutting taxes and increasing borrowing to pay for rich people to get richer when (in modern times) inequality has never been greater.
And to do that we’re willing to risk destroying government debt, pension schemes, the housing market and the equity markets.
And this is to “generate growth”.
Utterly feckless, evil morons.
It won’t be austerity…it will be so much worse. Austerity meant we screwed areas over by squeezing away all the extras. This will see attacks on benefits, pensions and everything else…just to balance a huge tax cut for the very rich. It’s that offensive.
They really are a cargo cult, aren’t they?
You can’t increase growth if a huge chunk of the population are defaulting on their mortgages, or not eating properly, or freezing to death in their homes, or dying of preventable causes due to lack of GP appointments and ambulances. Strong public services, a safety net welfare state and quality public infrastructure are essential building blocks for growth – without them the economy is built on sand. Wealth is generated by workers working, being rewarded properly and then feeling confident to spend that money to spread it to other parts of the economy. If the government wants to see short term growth then it needs to invest in industry, if it wants medium to long term growth then it needs to invest in education and infrastructure, and if it doesn’t want to slide into a depression it needs to spend a huge chunk on welfare to protect the poorest through these difficult times.
Pushing on with this free market bs looks increasingly unhinged and will lead to their party being wiped out at the next election. Good riddance, but in the meantime many preventable deaths will have occurred, millions of lives will have been ruined and thousands of businesses will have gone under.
In summary, we’ve seen that the cost of living crisis is crippling the country and our theory is that the poor people just aren’t poor enough. Fucking ghouls
Shut up you Death Eater.
Never, fucking ever vote Conservatives.
This is now becoming an act of economic terrorism. They are deliberately ruining the economy to pursue a failed ideology for no reason other than to allow the people at the very top to accumulate what for them will be a tiny bit more money that they won’t ever spend.
And this isn’t even benefitting the top 1% anymore. It’s the top 0.1% they’re governing for now.
Since the referendum, most of us who saw the facts and ignored the emotional warfare, almost anticipated the coming years of struggle and hardship in some form or the other, which kind of makes this a more softer blow because when you anticipate a struggle, the actual struggle isn’t that bad
😂 it’s all the racist ukip Tory edl brexiteer twats that will find this agonisingly difficult because they have been anticipating the sunlit uplands of ye olden Britannia bla bla… they was expecting green luscious little Britain countryside strolls with wads of cash in each pocket with not a European and (Muslims brown faces) shhh don’t say that bit to loud…. In sight…
Instead they are miserably poorer, fishing industry decimated, farming teetering on collapse.. 400,000 Indians on the way, 3 million hong kongians (I think I wrote that correctly, sorry if I didn’t) granted access… ummm 200,000 Covid deaths…. 2 or 3 trillion in debt. Benefits about to be slashed even more! NHS being sold down the river…… said river is also full of shite.
Am I happy to see my fellow British brethren’s suffer??? Honestly no I’m not… but fuck me don’t they half deserve it and every bit of struggle they will face.
The little cry that slime ball dirty sleaze bag prick Ian Dale did the other day 😂😂😂 each and every little Tory ukip brexiteer will be having a smilier cry and whinge and they can lie to themselves and say “we survived the blitz and something something bulldog spirit”
Let Nigel garage and Katie fucking Hopkins help you dossers out…. Wankers
… Who would have suspected the face eating leopard party would eat your face.
Always wondered where this lad would end up, now I know……….
>Labour has taken a 33-point lead over the Tories in the polls, alarming many Conservative MPs.
Kinda says it all.
A new age? Did the last one ever end?
The Daily Heil reading Torys might not be able to heat their homes, feed themselves, get to see a Dr; but so long as there is a headline about people on Universal credit getting their benefits cut, they’ll be happy.
I didn’t like Boris for his personality and the galling way he went about stuff.
I hate Truss for this absolute bullshit of policy that so blatantly is anti-poor/pro rich mates that it makes me sick.
What we are currently witnessing, is the single largest transfer of wealth in the UK in modern history. There is no way to cover it up or dress it is any other way.
This current Government should be viewed as nothing more than a criminal organisation acting under the auspices of a Government.
It is very clear, looking at it from all directions, that this organisation is not acting in the interests of the UK, Crown Dependencies or its Citizens.
This lot arrive on stage like they are all Christian faith healers.
Trouble is ,they end up putting perfectly healthy people into wheelchairs and they leave after being touched with a terminal disease.
It is just this sheer refusal to even contemplate whether their decisions may or may not actually work. Double down or just hide is the new norm.
Simon Clarke, believe it or not, is the levelling-up secretary.
Take from that what you will.
Why is it I don’t see organised protests? Almost a decade in the UK and the only protests I remember are the climate kids gluing themselves and some covid ones. I can’t be the only one itching to go make some noise? This government is simply ridiculous.
Here come the armchair experts telling our government how to run the economy 🙄 bet they woulve preferred Corbyn and his loony band
We need a general election fast the conservatives have totally lost it and are out of control
This has gone on long enough now. The Tory MP’s need to grow a backbone and put the good of the country first and admit they can’t govern anymore. They have scraped the bottom of the barrel and come up with a cabinate that shouldnt be in charge of a kiddie carnival and they need need NEED to allow a general election like the British public want.
They have utterly distroyed all credibility this country once had on the international stage and damaged our relationships with our closest trading partners.
> Truss and her core team believe that the markets have overreacted and will recover once they have seen the full extent of her plans. They include significant cuts in public spending to shore up government finances.
The markets reacted the way they have *because* of the clear sign there’d need to be significant cuts in public spending.
Is this what brexit was really about? Freedom to make policies to benefit the rich? How are we even allowing this to happen?
What people haven’t understood is that this ideology hates not on the poorest but on the middle-class.
Public services and the welfare state literally created most of the UKs middle-class, before then we had a tiny middle and a huge working-class. We are heading back to that.
Yes we’ve had first austerity, but what about second austerity?
They have absolutely no mandate to do this without a general election.
“Radical action to limit public spending”
How about you tax your rich fucking friends instead of helping them make even more money at our expense yet again? Tory cunts. Sooner they’re gone, the better.
If you vote Tory this is your doing if you voted brexit this is your shit I’m the making congrats
“new” age of austerity? When did we finish with the last one?
We need a fucking general election already. Vote these utter, fetid, rotting cunts out.
Im confused, how do they claim this will help? It’s clearly stupid but how exactly are they justifying it?
Truss ally Simon Clark becomes future whipping boy for government’s doomed economic policies.
Election, now, please. Let’s get these shitty vindictive waste of human organs out of government now and forever.
We need a general election, and we need one now. (Bet the morons will still vote Tory, though)
I thought we were still in the age of austerity. Probably makes more sense to just continue this one? Unless they’re going for a re-brand. Austerity 2: This time you’ll starve
new age?
​
i think for the last 12 years we’ve been in semi-permanent austerity. Bunch of see you next tuesdays, the lot of them
We just can’t trust truss, not with what’s currently unfolding.
37 comments
Britain has lived in a “fool’s paradise” for too long and must reduce public spending to help to fund the government’s £45 billion worth of tax cuts, a senior cabinet minister has warned.
Simon Clarke, the levelling-up secretary and a key ally of Liz Truss, criticised the “very large welfare state” and said Whitehall departments would have to “trim the fat”.
Truss and her government are attempting to reassure the markets and their own MPs after the pound fell to a record low this week and the Bank of England was forced to make a £65 billion intervention in the bond market. Labour has taken a 33-point lead over the Tories in the polls, alarming many Conservative MPs.
Truss and her core team believe that the markets have overreacted and will recover once they have seen the full extent of her plans. They include significant cuts in public spending to shore up government finances.
The prime minister refused yesterday to rule out raising benefits at below the rate of inflation as part of government cost-saving measures, saying ministers would make an announcement in “due course”.
In an interview with The Times, Clarke, a member of the “quad” of most senior ministers, said Truss had no choice but to take radical action to limit public spending.
He said: “My big concern in politics is that western Europe is just living in a fool’s paradise whereby we can be ever less productive relative to our peers, and yet still enjoy a very large welfare state and persist in thinking that the two are somehow compatible over the medium to long term.
“They’re not. We need to address that precisely because in the end, if we want those strong public services then we are going to have to pay for them.”
Several Tory MPs, including a serving cabinet minister, told The Times that she would be forced to “back down” because the government had lost so much support over its budget. Tory MPs are in talks with Labour about how to overturn the budget, amid warnings that the Conservatives will lose the next election.
The prime minister rejected pressure yesterday to bring forward an independent assessment by the Office for Budget Responsibility of the impact of her tax cuts on public finances.
Clarke said that public spending must “align” with the government’s new tax plans. “I think it is important that we look at a state which is extremely large, and look at how we can make sure that it is in full alignment with a lower tax economy,” he said. “I do think it’s very hard to cut taxes if you don’t have the commensurate profile of spending and the supply side reform. If we’re adopting this plan, which I think is exciting and fundamentally addresses the competitiveness issue, the rest of the piece needs to move in tandem.
“We are privileged to deal with very large budgets. My experience . . . is that there is always something you can do to trim the fat.”
Tory MPs predicted that Truss would not have the support to push cuts to benefits through the Commons. One said: “We cannot be voting to cap benefits when we’re giving tax cuts to the highest earners.
Other MPs said they were concerned that higher borrowing costs — in part triggered by the government’s tax- cutting budget — could choke off the investment that Truss had put at the centre of her plans. “I know at least one business that has put their expansion plans on hold because they don’t know if they’ll be able to service the debt,” a former cabinet minister said.
*Steven Swinford, Political Editor | Oliver Wright, Policy Editor*
So we’re literally cutting taxes and increasing borrowing to pay for rich people to get richer when (in modern times) inequality has never been greater.
And to do that we’re willing to risk destroying government debt, pension schemes, the housing market and the equity markets.
And this is to “generate growth”.
Utterly feckless, evil morons.
It won’t be austerity…it will be so much worse. Austerity meant we screwed areas over by squeezing away all the extras. This will see attacks on benefits, pensions and everything else…just to balance a huge tax cut for the very rich. It’s that offensive.
They really are a cargo cult, aren’t they?
You can’t increase growth if a huge chunk of the population are defaulting on their mortgages, or not eating properly, or freezing to death in their homes, or dying of preventable causes due to lack of GP appointments and ambulances. Strong public services, a safety net welfare state and quality public infrastructure are essential building blocks for growth – without them the economy is built on sand. Wealth is generated by workers working, being rewarded properly and then feeling confident to spend that money to spread it to other parts of the economy. If the government wants to see short term growth then it needs to invest in industry, if it wants medium to long term growth then it needs to invest in education and infrastructure, and if it doesn’t want to slide into a depression it needs to spend a huge chunk on welfare to protect the poorest through these difficult times.
Pushing on with this free market bs looks increasingly unhinged and will lead to their party being wiped out at the next election. Good riddance, but in the meantime many preventable deaths will have occurred, millions of lives will have been ruined and thousands of businesses will have gone under.
In summary, we’ve seen that the cost of living crisis is crippling the country and our theory is that the poor people just aren’t poor enough. Fucking ghouls
Shut up you Death Eater.
Never, fucking ever vote Conservatives.
This is now becoming an act of economic terrorism. They are deliberately ruining the economy to pursue a failed ideology for no reason other than to allow the people at the very top to accumulate what for them will be a tiny bit more money that they won’t ever spend.
And this isn’t even benefitting the top 1% anymore. It’s the top 0.1% they’re governing for now.
Since the referendum, most of us who saw the facts and ignored the emotional warfare, almost anticipated the coming years of struggle and hardship in some form or the other, which kind of makes this a more softer blow because when you anticipate a struggle, the actual struggle isn’t that bad
😂 it’s all the racist ukip Tory edl brexiteer twats that will find this agonisingly difficult because they have been anticipating the sunlit uplands of ye olden Britannia bla bla… they was expecting green luscious little Britain countryside strolls with wads of cash in each pocket with not a European and (Muslims brown faces) shhh don’t say that bit to loud…. In sight…
Instead they are miserably poorer, fishing industry decimated, farming teetering on collapse.. 400,000 Indians on the way, 3 million hong kongians (I think I wrote that correctly, sorry if I didn’t) granted access… ummm 200,000 Covid deaths…. 2 or 3 trillion in debt. Benefits about to be slashed even more! NHS being sold down the river…… said river is also full of shite.
Am I happy to see my fellow British brethren’s suffer??? Honestly no I’m not… but fuck me don’t they half deserve it and every bit of struggle they will face.
The little cry that slime ball dirty sleaze bag prick Ian Dale did the other day 😂😂😂 each and every little Tory ukip brexiteer will be having a smilier cry and whinge and they can lie to themselves and say “we survived the blitz and something something bulldog spirit”
Let Nigel garage and Katie fucking Hopkins help you dossers out…. Wankers
… Who would have suspected the face eating leopard party would eat your face.
Always wondered where this lad would end up, now I know……….
https://youtu.be/zInyrDfR4us
>Labour has taken a 33-point lead over the Tories in the polls, alarming many Conservative MPs.
Kinda says it all.
A new age? Did the last one ever end?
The Daily Heil reading Torys might not be able to heat their homes, feed themselves, get to see a Dr; but so long as there is a headline about people on Universal credit getting their benefits cut, they’ll be happy.
I didn’t like Boris for his personality and the galling way he went about stuff.
I hate Truss for this absolute bullshit of policy that so blatantly is anti-poor/pro rich mates that it makes me sick.
What we are currently witnessing, is the single largest transfer of wealth in the UK in modern history. There is no way to cover it up or dress it is any other way.
This current Government should be viewed as nothing more than a criminal organisation acting under the auspices of a Government.
It is very clear, looking at it from all directions, that this organisation is not acting in the interests of the UK, Crown Dependencies or its Citizens.
This lot arrive on stage like they are all Christian faith healers.
Trouble is ,they end up putting perfectly healthy people into wheelchairs and they leave after being touched with a terminal disease.
It is just this sheer refusal to even contemplate whether their decisions may or may not actually work. Double down or just hide is the new norm.
Simon Clarke, believe it or not, is the levelling-up secretary.
Take from that what you will.
Why is it I don’t see organised protests? Almost a decade in the UK and the only protests I remember are the climate kids gluing themselves and some covid ones. I can’t be the only one itching to go make some noise? This government is simply ridiculous.
Here come the armchair experts telling our government how to run the economy 🙄 bet they woulve preferred Corbyn and his loony band
We need a general election fast the conservatives have totally lost it and are out of control
This has gone on long enough now. The Tory MP’s need to grow a backbone and put the good of the country first and admit they can’t govern anymore. They have scraped the bottom of the barrel and come up with a cabinate that shouldnt be in charge of a kiddie carnival and they need need NEED to allow a general election like the British public want.
They have utterly distroyed all credibility this country once had on the international stage and damaged our relationships with our closest trading partners.
> Truss and her core team believe that the markets have overreacted and will recover once they have seen the full extent of her plans. They include significant cuts in public spending to shore up government finances.
The markets reacted the way they have *because* of the clear sign there’d need to be significant cuts in public spending.
Is this what brexit was really about? Freedom to make policies to benefit the rich? How are we even allowing this to happen?
What people haven’t understood is that this ideology hates not on the poorest but on the middle-class.
Public services and the welfare state literally created most of the UKs middle-class, before then we had a tiny middle and a huge working-class. We are heading back to that.
Yes we’ve had first austerity, but what about second austerity?
They have absolutely no mandate to do this without a general election.
“Radical action to limit public spending”
How about you tax your rich fucking friends instead of helping them make even more money at our expense yet again? Tory cunts. Sooner they’re gone, the better.
If you vote Tory this is your doing if you voted brexit this is your shit I’m the making congrats
“new” age of austerity? When did we finish with the last one?
We need a fucking general election already. Vote these utter, fetid, rotting cunts out.
Im confused, how do they claim this will help? It’s clearly stupid but how exactly are they justifying it?
Truss ally Simon Clark becomes future whipping boy for government’s doomed economic policies.
Election, now, please. Let’s get these shitty vindictive waste of human organs out of government now and forever.
We need a general election, and we need one now. (Bet the morons will still vote Tory, though)
I thought we were still in the age of austerity. Probably makes more sense to just continue this one? Unless they’re going for a re-brand. Austerity 2: This time you’ll starve
new age?
​
i think for the last 12 years we’ve been in semi-permanent austerity. Bunch of see you next tuesdays, the lot of them
We just can’t trust truss, not with what’s currently unfolding.